May i8, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
15 
Where America Stands 
By Lewis R. Freeman 
A COUPLE of years ago — only a month or two 
previous to the outbreak of the war, in fact — 
I listened one night, in San Francisco, to what I 
thought was the most eloquent, the most reason- 
able, the most convincing " peace " address I had ever 
heard. The speaker was a well-known American editor 
and publicist, one of a family distinguished for three 
generations for its efforts to promote universal brother- 
hood, to make the dream of world federation an accom- 
plished fact. He did not, like Norman Angell and other 
professional pacifists, maintain that financial and other 
material considerations would make future wars im- 
possible, but only held that man's increasing humanity to 
man, as evidenced on every side, could bring the world 
to no other goal than a scheme of living founded on a 
" live-and-let-live " and " do-as-you-would-be-done-b}' " 
basis. Unlike the ante-bellum harangues of the pro- 
fessional pacifists, too, that speech, delivered to-day, 
would ring almost as true as it did two years ago ; this 
because it was based on fundamental truths, which the 
war has not altered, but only given us the more clearly 
to understand. 
However, this particular peace address will nfit be given 
again, or at least not for a considerable time. I know 
this, for the speaker himself told me so on an evening 
when I sat next him at supper at the New York " Author's 
Club " scarcely a month ago. 
American Aloofness 
" You're just over on a short visit from the other side, 
are you not? " he asked. " So! Well, how do things 
look to you here after six months' absence ? Are you as 
much shocked as is everyone else who comes back from 
France or England at the aloofness, the lack of respon- 
sibility, not to say callousness, of this country regarding 
the war ? " 
" Frankly, yes," I admitted. "The glare of the 
' Great M'hite Way ' is a welcome relief from the dark- 
ness of London, but there is no use pretending that the 
lights of Broadway are sj'mbolic of any general enlighten- 
ment existing in this country in the matter of the great 
world issues now being decided — perhaps for the next 
score or so of generations — in Europe." 
" Several dozen other returning Americans have told 
us about the same thing," he said ; " only you are rather 
more moderate than the majority of them. All of them 
are ashamed ; most of them indignant, and ' mad clean 
through.' Do you know what I am afraid of ? It isn't 
that we won't get into war with Germany — that is in- 
evitable if Prussianism is not crushed once and for all 
time by the Allies, andVe don't know yet that it will 
be — but that we will not get into this war with Germany. 
1 mean that unless Germany commits some flagrantly 
and deliberately overt act, such as the sinking of an 
American liner "with loss of life, that will force us in willy- 
nilly — and I think the Kaiser will take good care not to 
do that — \ve may not, as a nation,' come to our senses 
in time to draw the sword before the present struggle is 
practically over. We shall have had no part " 
" Pardon me," I interrupted. " But I don't seem 
quite able to reconcile your words with those which I 
heard you speak in San Francisco two years ago." 
" I hear something like that every day now," he 
answered, " and from both ' friend ' and * foe.' I found 
1 had still much to learn about many things, and the war 
has been the means of teaching me some of the most 
important of them. They used to call me a ' practical 
idealist ' ; the war taught me that I was only an im- 
practical dreamer. As a matter of fact. I am still an 
idealist, and also, I trust, still practical. Perhaps the 
main thing that the war has brought home to me is the 
fact that while there is such a thing as Prussianism still 
alive in this world, practicality and idealism, so far at 
least as international politics are concerned, cannot go 
hand in hand. Until or unless Prussianism is crushed for 
all time, therefore, I have made up my mind to keep my 
idealism foi a domestic pet, roaming only within the 
' three-mile limit,' and emploj' what practicality I may 
have to bring home to my fellow countrymen these 
cumulative facts ; first, that there is a great war going 
on ; second, that it is a world war rather than a localised 
European struggle ; and third, that for reasons both 
moral and material — not only on the score of national 
honour, but of national safety and perhaps national 
existence as well — it is their duty, by actual and active 
participation in the war, to do their share in ridding the 
world of the menace of Pi-ussianism. 
Ahead of Congress 
" So far as the country as a whole is concerned, one 
cannot be sure that it has much more than grasped the 
first two facts. That the people fully realise that it is a 
world war that is raging — one that may involve them 
whether they desire it or not — is shown by the attention 
they are giving to the so-called ' preparedness ' movement. 
In this particular — in the determination to build up 
an adequate army and navy — the people are unquestion- 
ably ahead of the Government, or at least of Congress, now, 
as many times in the past, the country's ' Old Man of the 
Sea.' But as for realising that both honour and material 
interest- — the latter quite as powerfully as the former — 
impel America to align herself with the Allies against ' 
Germany, I am afraid I can hardly describe such a grasp 
of the situation as anything like universal. The most 
encouraging feature of the situation is that practically 
all of our sound thinkers — the men that stand for the 
best in literature, politics and business — have arrived 
at this conclusion, and are speaking out. Their influence 
is rapidly moulding popular opinion among unprejudiced 
Americans of all classes, but whether this will become 
strong enough to galvanise the country into action before 
it is too late is open to considerable doubt. I pin my 
main hopes to Germany's ' running amok ' again and 
doing something that will leave us no choice but to turn 
to and fight." 
" What do you mean by ' too late V " I asked. 
" Just this : The ignorance and selfishness — not to use 
several stronger terms which I would be perfectly justified 
in employing — of a very large element in Congress, and 
especially in the House of Representatives, makes it 
absolutely out of the qiiestion for the nation properly to 
meet the present crisis in our foreign affairs. Now, 
supposing the quickening conscience of the people would 
make it possible to replace the worst of this ' rotten 
timber ' with sound wood through resolute action at the 
polls in the November election. The fact remains that, 
even in this happy contingency, the new Congress would 
not be able to make itself felt until it convened next 
March, and by that time our chance of being of any 
material use in the war may well have gone by. The 
fight to determine whether humanity or ' frightfulncss ' 
is to be the dominant force of the next cycle of history 
may well have been lost or won without America's having 
struclj: a blow for a fundamental cause of which she has 
trumpeted herself the foremost champion since the day 
of her birth." 
Material Interest 
" Just what do you mean by saying that materia' 
interest as well as honour should impel America to go into 
the war on the side of the Allies ? " I asked. " I have 
observed with much satisfaction that an increasingly 
large number of right-minded Americans are ready to 
draw the sword on the score of honour, but it seems to be 
the pretty general opinion that honour would be just 
about all we could hope to come out of it with. What 
material interests would our participation in the war 
serve ? You don't mean more ' munition prosperity,' 
do you ? Wouldn't that be more than offset by. the fact 
that we would have to begin taking Europe's 
I.O.U.'s where we are now getting her gold ? " 
" I didn't mean anything quite so material as dollars 
and cents." was the reply. " What I did mean was Hiis : 
